Have you ever wondered if your ancestors traveled back to their home country, or went on vacation to tropical climes? Maybe you haven’t had the chance to investigate when or where your ancestor immigrated to the United States. This weekend Ancestry offers you a great opportunity to do all of the above.

In 1840 the family was living in Massena, St. Lawrence, NY and continued to live in that area until around 1849/50. This is evidenced by the birth locations of the first six children with the exception of Holton Bean who was born in Canada. It can only be speculated on why he might have been born there, but his mother was from Cornwall, Ontario, Canada which is located just across the St. Lawrence River from Massena, NY. Reasonable possibilities could be that because of winter time weather in that part of New York his mother might have been visiting her family in Canada when it was time for her son to be born, or that she was coincidentally there for some other reason.

In 1850, the Bean family was living in a completely different location: Woodhull township, Shiawassee, MI. Richard L. Bean and family is making his living as a farmer.

In 1860 the family had moved again, this time to their final destination, in Nashua, Chickasaw, IA where the last three children, Lemuel, Helen Jane and Andrew Bean were born.

Look For The Children, Find The Parents

It was just by a little reverse sleuthing that I found Richard L. Bean and family in the 1850 census. I was searching the census for each child down the line chronologically and found Holton Bean with his parents in Michigan. As it turned out, the census taker had list the family as Richard, R L instead of as it should have been Bean, Richard L. Another instance that made it hard to find the family in that year was that the listing for them was at the bottom of the census page, with three of the children listed at the top of the following page. This is an important thing to keep in mind. Always try to find the children if you can’t find the parents.

First Generation Yates

The line (so far) is traced to Roane County, TN and begins there with Miles Yates who married Debby Holmes there in 1840.

Second Generation

Son James Knox Polk Yates stayed in Roane County, but two of his children by his first wife, James William Milburn and Myra Yates migrated to Missouri with the Morrison family.

Third Generation

Jim Yates married Cerilda Breedlove in Missouri and at least one of their children moved to Oklahoma. Almost all of the other Yates children migrated to Washington state to jobs connected to the lumber industry. They include: Lem, Elizabeth, Rhoda, Lydia, Will, and Martha.

Fourth Generation

One of Jim’s daughters, Cerilda, moved to California where she passed away. Son Will’s family (Gale, Guy and Waldo) stayed in Washington. (Guy passed away in 1938 in WA state). Waldo (Wally) then migrated to Oregon for a short time and then settled in California.

This is a short snapshot of the Yates family migration from 1840 to the Present.